POLICE BREAK UP PRAYER MEETING

Zimbabwean police attacked 400 women who had gathered for an all-night prayer meeting on the eve of Election Day and severely assaulted them. 38 were severely injured and hospitalised. The focus of the women’s prayer meeting was to pray for peace.

MASS ARRESTS AND DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY

After the elections more than 18,000 people were arrested and thousands of people left homeless as their homes and businesses, in the informal settlements, were razed to the ground by Zimbabwean police. Operation “Restore Order” was understood to be in retaliation for the residents of these informal settlements on the outskirts of the capital city, Harare, having voted overwhelmingly for the opposition MDC in the 31 March polls. Armoured troop carriers patrolled the suburbs of Harare as the army was mobilised to suppress mounting public anger. Battles were fought between police and informal traders, with the police under orders to use live ammunition against civilians attempting to resist.

BLACKOUT PUNISHMENT

A ZANU-PF candidate who contested and lost the Bulawayo South constituency to the main opposition MDC’s David Coltard, ordered the removal of an electricity transformer from the Bulawayo suburb. Sithenbiso Nyoni who had 3,777 votes against Coltard’s 12,120 in the elections, ordered the suburb plunged into darkness by the removal of the electricity transformer to “fix” the residents for failing to vote her into Parliament.

HOTELS THREATENED

Gideon Gomo, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, threatened to close down some of the country’s biggest hotels for allegedly failing to hand over hard currency from foreign guests during the recent elections. “We will not hesitate to close down two, or three, five star hotels, up until the sector complies with regulations…we did it with the financial sector and we will not hesitate to do it with the tourism industry.”

THEFT BY EXCHANGE RATE

While the Zimbabwean Dollar has crashed to Z$28,000 to US$1 the official exchange rate is Z$6,200. However, exporters are required to trade at Z$824 to US$1. Understandably most Zimbabweans have not been willing to hand over their hard earnings at such artificially low exchange rates. The dreaded surveillance and investigative arm of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has unleashed a countrywide blitz on hoteliers in a desperate bid to scrounge around for foreign currency.

A MAN MADE FAMINE

The Zimbabwean government has announced that it will have to import 1.2 million tonnes of maize grain in the coming months to make up for a national shortfall. USAID has warned of impending famine as mielie meal, cooking oil and sugar supplies have dried up. Zimbabwe’s shortage of food has become an emergency according to a famine warning network. Mielie meal is largely unavailable according to USAID’s Early Warning Systems Network. The critical shortage of food in Zimbabwe is one of the results of the government Land Reform Programme, which confiscated 5,000 commercial farms from White farmers in what was meant to be a Land Resettlement Programme, but which generally was only a looting and destruction spree. The collapse of the commercial agriculture of Zimbabwe which was once the largest employer of labour in the country, and which provided most of the exports and foreign exchange for the country has been described as a national suicide which has lead to the man made famine in Zimbabwe.

COMMUNIST HATE SPEECH

Communist dictator, Robert Mugabe, who came to power in Zimbabwe in 1980 after a vicious civil war, has publicly proclaimed: “Farmers are enemies of the state!”; “We have degrees in violence”; “What Hitler did to the Jews, I will do to the Whites - tenfold!”; “I will be a Black Hitler – tenfold!”; “The Revolution is yet to be concluded…we have set the rules!…those farmers who resist will die!”

MILITARY MASSACRES

Shortly after taking power, Mugabe’s North Korean trained Fifth Brigade went on the rampage, killing tens of thousands of Matabele tribesmen. The Zimbabwe National Army has also been involved in foreign wars, propping up the unpopular Marxist dictatorship in Mozambique in the 1980’s and the un-elected Marxist regime in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

INTIMIDATION AND ATROCITIES

Mugabe’s ZANU-PF has been involved in a violent campaign against all those who were considered unsupportive of the Marxist government of Zimbabwe. During the March 2002 presidential election in Zimbabwe, over 1,400 election observers were arrested in a major nationwide clampdown. Human rights groups documented over 70,000 human rights abuses in the run-up to the elections. These included severe beatings, abductions, tortures and even murders. ZANU PF officials, supporters, war veterans and war brigade militia rampaged through residential areas, attacking people, indiscriminately beating street vendors, dragging White farmers from their cars, savagely beating and murdering many.

SILENCING ALL OPPOSITION

The one independent radio station was blown up. The Independent Daily News offices was also attacked and blown up. Judges who made rulings against ZANU-PF were attacked by mobs, even assaulted in their chambers in court. Supreme court justices who opposed Mugabe’s campaign of lawlessness were forced to resign upon public threat of death. Pastors have been arrested for prayer. Other pastors have been warned “to be careful” with their prayers. Central Intelligence Organisation agents have even instructed pastors to write down their prayers for them to scrutinise beforehand.

ELECTORAL FRAUD

One South African election observer, Diana Kohler Barnard MP, reported: “I have travelled the length and breadth of this land and have satisfied myself that this sham of an election has been one of the most cynical frauds perpetrated on the international community in electoral history.”

GHOST VOTERS

Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo declared that Zimbabwe has an army of “ghost voters”. Some 800,000 on the roll are dead, about 600,000 are duplicates, and 300,000 do not exist at all. He estimates that something like 2 million of the voters on the electoral roll are fraudulent.

DISENFRANCHISED

Reportedly up to 23% of would-be voters were turned away from the polls. All Zimbabweans outside of the country (about a third of the population) were barred from voting. And the entire election process was run by the Zimbabwe Army and Police, which are thoroughly politicised and have declared complete loyalty to Robert Mugabe, even to the extent of declaring that they will not allow any hand over of power to any opposition party even if they won the election!

IT DOESN’T ADD UP

Much of the electoral fraud was blatant. In the Manyane Constituency the commission announced that 14,812 people had voted. So when the opposition MDC candidate polled 8,312 votes that would have made her the winner, however the commission suddenly found 9,491 extra votes to go to the ZANU-PF candidate, Mugabe’s nephew. In the Chegutu Constituency it was announced that 19,763 votes had been cast, but when they added the total vote of the two candidates, it was in fact 24,824. Where did the other 5,065 votes come from?

A STOLEN ELECTION

The Sokwanele Civic Support Group report, “Enough is enough” declared: “On March 31 st a theft of breath-taking proportions took place in Zimbabwe. Stolen from the citizens of this land was their constitutional right to elect their own representatives to Parliament. So great was the scale of the national heist that it effectively took from the people the government of their choice and foisted upon them a government they did not want and had not voted for. The Mugabe regime had been planning to rig the election from the moment the date was announced…without the months of careful preparation and total manipulation of the electoral process ZANU-PF knew it would face extinction.” Eddie Cross of the MDC reported that: “A message from an agent in the state’s security services said that in fact the MDC had won 94 of the 120 seats.” Nevertheless, Mugabe claimed a “land slide victory”. He claimed to have “won” 78 seats in addition to the 30 - which by his constitution he is allowed to arbitrarily appoint – as against the 41 won by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

HE WHO COUNTS

As Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin announced: “It is not who votes that counts, but who counts the votes”.

“AN IMPECCABLE EXAMPLE”

However, according to South African ANC Member of Parliament, Nthabiseng Khunou, Zimbabwe’s parliamentary elections were so “impeccable” that South Africa should seriously consider learning how to run elections from its northern neighbour! Khunou, who was part of the South African Parliament’s observer group to the disputed elections set off a lively discussion at the South African Institute of International Affairs at an electoral review meeting. When asked to list elements which she would want South Africa to adopt Khunou launched into a tirade:“I’m not here to tell you what you want to hear…I did not see any violence in Zimbabwe!” The audience openly laughed at Khunou.

THE CHINESE CONNECTION

The opposition MDC believes that the rampant police brutality and destruction of property in the urban strongholds of the opposition is not merely retaliation for voting against the government, but one of the ways in which Mugabe is seeking to accommodate his patrons in Red China. Mugabe has publicly declared that he has turned away from the West where the sun sets and has turned to the East where the sun rises! Red China is providing arms and jet fighters to Zimbabwe. In return, Zimbabwe is giving China land. Red China’s government is planning to build Mugabe a new mansion on the outskirts of the capital, Harare. And Chinese traders are flooding the country with cheap shoes and clothes, and with Chinese immigrants to sell them too. So the MDC believes that the crackdown on informal traders, the vast majority of which are opposition supporters, is to help eliminate the competition for these new Chinese traders in Zimbabwe.

“They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity.” 2 Peter 2:19